Gripla - 2020, Blaðsíða 14

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context of the twentieth-century Freeprose-Bookprose debate.14 The de-
bate between these theories reflected opposing stances on the origins of the
Íslendingasögur. Freeprose theory argued that these sagas were composed
orally as unities before being written down. Bookprose theory, on the
other hand, supposed that, while the Íslendingasögur could have originated
from oral traditions to one degree or another, they were effectively liter-
ary compositions.15 Both schools of thought saw Ljósvetninga saga as an
important test case where their own view of saga composition would tri-
umph. Despite scholarship having moved on from these debates to a more
nuanced understanding of the sagas’ oral origins,16 their importance lies in
the way that they shaped the editions that outlived them and the general
debate surrounding Ljósvetninga saga.
The issue of Ljósvetninga saga’s redactions was first highlighted by
Adolfine Erichsen’s stylistic examination of the saga: she prioritized the
C-redaction variant as the more logical version and stylistically closer to
the parallel parts of the saga, arguing that the redactor of the A-redaction
had rewritten the text, possibly due to a lacuna in the exemplar that was
filled by recourse to oral tradition.17 These results were emphasized by
Freeprose scholar Knut Liestøl, who framed Ljósvetninga saga as provid-
ing us with the “only reliable example” of two separate oral traditions for
A STYLOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF LJóSVETNINGA SAGA
14 “Freiprosa” and “Buchprosa.” Andreas Heusler, Die Anfänge der isländischen saga, Ab-
handlungen Der Königl. Preuss. Akademie Der Wissenschaften. Phil-hist. Classe 1913: 9
(Berlin: Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1914), 53–55.
15 See Theodore M. Andersson, the Problem of Icelandic saga Origins: A Historical survey
(London: Yale University Press, 1964), 65–81.
16 See e.g. Gísli Sigurðsson. the Medieval Icelandic saga and Oral tradition, a Discourse on
Method, Translated by Nicholas Jones, Publications of the Milman Parry Collection of
Oral Literature 2, Cambridge, MA: Milman Parry Collection Distributed by Harvard
University Press, 2004; and Slavica Ranković, “Who Is Speaking in Traditional Texts? On
the Distributed Author of the Sagas of Icelanders and Serbian Epic Poetry,” new Literary
History 38.2 (2007): 293–307.
17 Erichsen, Untersuchungen, 58–60. Erichsen’s stylistic arguments are explored in greater
detail below. See also Andersson, Problem of saga Origins, 151. Björn M. ólsen argued
similarly in his posthumously published lecture series on the Íslendingasögur, though he
prioritized the A-redaction over the C-redaction, Björn Magnússon ólsen, “íslenzkar
fornsögur gefnar út af hinu íslenzka bókmenntafélagi: I. Glúma- og Ljósvetningasaga.
Khöfn 1880,” tímarit Hins íslenzka Bókmentafélags (1880): 374–375. Guðbrandur Vigfússon
and F. York Powell stated that “It almost seems as if the story of Acre-Thore [in the A
redaction] has been retold imperfectly from memory” (Origines Islandicae, ed. and trans.